Review- Taylor McCall: Mellow War
Photo by Olivia Wolf
We are starting 2024 with a banger: I am pleased to present to the world the one and only Taylor McCall. Never heard of him? Me neither. But, once I heard his hauntingly delicious voice echo through the palmetto trees and reverberate through my soul, seemingly calling to me from the great unknown, I was hooked like a five pound bass. Once Mellow War hits your ears, bask in the afterglow and soak up the intoxicating dreamscapes of heartbreak, missed opportunities and unrequited love. If you enjoy discovering exhilarating new artists before they blow up, Taylor McCall is the dark horse you have been looking for. Dropping Friday, Mellow War is not to be missed and decisively delivers on all fronts.
Equally impressive as South Carolina’s Taylor McCall’s sultry, smoky, smoldering voice, is his guitar playing, which McCall has been perfecting since the age of seven. His fingers effortlessly glide up, down and across the frets as he playfully plucks the guitar with a surreal spiritual ease. His pipes instantly capture your attention while his axe lures you in for the kill, no doubt a gift from above furnishing him with a supernatural one-two uppercut that defies mortal logic.
“My mystery is that most people see me as another southern guy or country musician and that’s not the whole being of my existence. Spirituality and worldmusic to me is connecting with a greater force and that’s what my music is; it’s connecting with something beyond me.”
Sean McConnell and Silent Desert Studios take the helm and magically take the perfect tact across uncharted waters. McConnell provides the perfect counterbalance; softening, refining and polishing McCall’s refreshingly rugged raw edges. McConnell is a categorical force to be reckoned with, epitomizing the old BASF commercial refrain: “We don’t make the products you buy, we make the products you buy better.” Wielding a tremendous musical gift from above, his innate ability to elevate the music of others and transport them onto another ethereal plane is second to none.
McCall and McConnell go together like a hand and glove and I for one am a big fan. Launching a blindingly brilliant album full of the good stuff that strikes a fantastic blow right in the feels. How good is this record? This record is straight fire and in my humble opinion Taylor’s best work to date. Songwriting, production, and instrumentation are all fabulously well done and flow in perfect harmony; not a single damn note out of place.
The absolute first and last listed tracks on Mellow War sandwich the main course similar to the previous Black Powder Soul effort with an intro and outro that teleports your everlasting being through an interdimensional wormhole; traversing spacetime. Then suddenly, your ears reach their final destination and are immediately seduced and mesmerized by McCall’s mouthwatering bluesy voice that rivals the best smokey Old Fashioned you have ever had, and of course, beams you back.
The first three singles released thus far are the first three full songs in order on the album and very much like drinking margaritas on a beach, they just get better with each and every one. Mellow War is a runaway train of intricately laced layers of emotional spiritual heartache steeped with holy water that continues to build up momentum right up to the very end. “My job is to skydive with my emotions,” McCalls says, clearly relishing the ride.
While waiting for the review tracks of Mellow War to hit my inbox, “Rest On Easy” was left on repeat for days on end. With each and every listen, the anticipation grew inside me until I wasn't sure that Mellow War could possibly live up to the hype I was creating for the album within myself. I could barely contain my excitement when the email containing the assets reached my inbox and I was finally able to hear the whole album in its entirety.
Mellow War was well worth the wait. I found myself, even after dozens of plays under my hat, still starting from the beginning and letting this album run its course. If I needed to zero into a particular song deeper into the setlist, I still started at “Sinking Sand,” making this a must have vinyl record.
“Rolling Stoned Again” hits like an emotional Mack truck: precisely panging heart strings as if they were simple strings on a guitar. Taylor McCall along with background vocals from Olivia Wolf and Sean McConnell have you feeling agony, heartbreak and suffering with the accuracy of an Olympic marksman. A song about desperately trying to suppress some affliction, yet faced with an inability to escape: fully immersed in the pain with everything everywhere torturing him, yet unwilling to let go no matter the toll.
“Whiskey Costs Less” rolls in deep, dark and dank. Taylor pulls triple duty, playing piano to open up the track. Then swooping in with his hauntingly deep, gravelly voice. Taylor McCall’s guitar playing on this song, especially towards the end of this tune, is just filthy. The steamy atmosphere created by this song leaves you needing a shower.
After a month of listening to Mellow War, “Born Again” is the song that is currently hitting me just right. When this toe tapping tune comes across my ears with its groovy wavy upbeat jam, signaling for me that the party is almost over, it also reminds me to keep one foot on the ground and ponder my own mortality in a fun uplifting way. Our time on this small rock floating in space is fleeting.
And it turns out
I’ve had more than I can take
Guess I need a place
To live my own heartbreaks
So break me down
And take me in
I'm here to die
And be born again
In closing, Mellow War supplies an enchanting concoction of southern bliss that marinates and swirls within your heart, mind and soul. I can’t get enough of Taylor McCall’s Mellow War and have no doubt that he will have you, too, delighting in the magic and beauty of traversing the mysterious curves of life. I also selfishly wonder what a McCall/McConnell duo would look like. The closest we have for now is the track, “I Want You Still.” I was blown away pondering what kind of sorcery was at play. Brilliant album.
Find out more about Taylor McCall at the links below:
